Rise Above Consumemas

Creating art from found natural objects can be a meaningful new Winter Solstice ritual that costs nothing.

Is there any Christmas left in Christmas? It is more like Consumemas now. It is all about the presents, the loot, the haul, the stuff. Shopping, wrapping, unwrapping, throwing away - same futile cycle with the same futile results. Within a few days all that remains is the debt and damage. 

It is no wonder many people find this madness to be depressing and demoralizing. But we can rise above Consumemas, and reclaim this special time of year for our own. It truly is an event worth celebrating, as humans have for millennia, before Christmas, or Consumemas, ever existed.

And while gift giving may be involved, it does not have to be all about the gifts. Indeed, gifts are not a required part of enjoying this time of year. While the social pressures are great, many are breaking free from the burden of mandatory (and often mindless) gift giving. 

Those with experience have found that involving a group of people in the discussion surrounding radically changing winter celebration traditions can be fruitful and liberating. Often they find that they aren't the only ones wondering how they can stop others from buying them things they don't want, or need. 

I got the following email reminder from Adbusters concerning #BuyNothingXmas:

"The malls are full of anxious sweat. The throngs are out and about for the final shopping "rush", hunting the aisles with a tense urgency that's inimical to the spirit of giving. But another Christmas is possible. Another way of being is possible. 

Reclaiming the ritual of this magical season – consciously and deliberately – is a radical, emancipatory choice. Since manufacturing and consumption are responsible for more than half of the global carbon dioxide emissions, choosing to buy nothing this Xmas may give Gaia some much needed relief. 

And if you still need to be convinced to consume less – consider that if we heat up just 4 degrees more, we will witness a total and irreversible collapse of human civilization. We're killing ourselves – but even as the denial about global warming is slowly breaking over us, we still choose – sheeplike – to join the madness in the malls. 

Consumerism is the opiate of the masses. Without significant rituals, we clamour to participate in the only ones we have, like the Christmas shopping binge, driven by our desire for meaning – of which our culture is devoid. 

#BuyNothingXmas gets to the heart of this matter. 

As the much awaited solstice arrives and Christmas nears, can you find the strength to break the addiction, to wake up from the nightmare ... will you be brave enough to plant the seed of a new way of being? Make your life a demonstration, a defiance, a piece of art, a heroic journey. 

Start this Christmas – dare to gather your friends and family together and vow to do it differently this year."

There are many meaningful ways to celebrate at this time of year. Conspicuous consumption does not have to be one of them.

“Creating a new tradition that brings more peace and heart to your holidays could also bring you closer to family and friends. 

Sharing a ritual founded on love of nature, on respect for the always renewing cycles of life, and on faith in the future has a way of bringing out the best in people.”

- Deena Wade

Free To Consume, Free To Unconsume

Our much touted freedom in so-called democratic countries is an illusion. It is an over hyped lie. Except for one area - we are free to do as much consuming as our bank accounts will allow.

Where else is the freedom?

Are we free to protest without harassment? Free to travel a world without restrictive borders? Free to live anywhere we want? Free to quit work and live off the land?

Are we free to put into our bodies what we want, or keep out of our bodies those things we don't want? Free to marry whom we wish? Free to use the bathroom we feel most appropriate for our gender situation? Free to read about the truth in the mainstream media?

Instead of gaining any freedoms, we are increasingly being stripped of any vestiges of liberty that we have left. In some parts of the world you are not free to harvest rain water, or grow a garden where you neighbours can see it, or without being taxed for the privilege of putting a bit of distance between you and the system.

Our system is broke. Unless you are rich, in which case you are more free than those less monetarily blessed. In today's world money is the way to freedom, not the ballet box. And if you don't have money you don't deserve to be free because you just aren't trying hard enough.

Now whole countries are being forced to accept the freedom to be plundered, privatized and pirated. How are you enjoying all that Western capitalist consumeristic freedom Iraq? Libya? Syria? Honduras? Brazil? Argentina? Egypt?

Are you feeling it yet, all that juicy freedom? When we stop the violence, you can go shopping.

Robin Mathews, author of “The Trans Pacific Partnership: Canada and Imperial Globalization”, describes our current situation:

"A characteristic of Imperial Globalization is criminal manipulation of people and events for the profit of a few. It includes massive ‘disinformation’ about equality, benefits, social development, law, improved standards of living, etc. 

The disinformation is spread by ‘authoritative’ news sources. In the hands of gigantic, wealthy, private corporations, globalization is a process which works to erase sovereign democracies and replaces them with ‘treatied’ sub-states, economic colonies ruled by faceless, offshore, often secret, unaccountable powers."

You see, it is all about enriching the few as a result of the consumption of the many. Have money? Want stuff? This new world was made for you. Your dollars will buy you the freedom to consume, plus a bit more, depending on how much cash you have. More cash - more freedom.

I don't know about you, but that is not a system I am interested in joining or supporting, and I will do everything I can to ensure that I am doing nothing to contribute toward this dismal distortion of our infinitely good and abundant planet.

Freedom can not really be bought. Or given. Or forced. It just is, and we have to actively live it for ourselves. After all, consumption is not legally mandatory. Yet. We still have a choice.

I am free to consume, but, well, no thanks. Consuming is enslaving us all. Therefore, I see unconsuming as the answer. As always, simplicity yields true freedom, and if more of us adopted such a lifestyle, we could negate the power of the criminal manipulators, and turn this thing around.

I'm not buying anything. Not their stuff, or their bullshit, for I am free to unconsume.

Jungle Zen

It does not take much to be happy - just ask these two.

In 1967 singer/songwriter Terry Gilkyson wrote The Bare Necessities for a movie called The Jungle Book. When the first version of the movie was scrapped Gilkyson's song was the only thing that was kept. I am glad it made the cut.

I discovered the influence of these words as a lad of 7 or 8 years old. I was unused to big entertainments since my family did not own a TV, and we did not have money to take our 7 member brood out on the town very often.

I can't remember who took that younger version of me to the Paramount Theatre to see the movie, but I do remember being blown away by the whole spectacle.

The Bare Necessities scene was my favourite part at the time, and now when I revisit this song I think that the struggling songwriter must have known the simple life. When I read parts of the song it reads like a Zen poem rather than a mickey mouse made movie.

For me this song represents "Jungle Zen", and I do think that it must have steered me as a child towards more sensible ideas of consumption and expectations. Even then it appealed to me and made sense.

The Bare Necessities

...don't spend your time looking around

For something you want that can't be found.

When you find out you can live without it

And go along not thinking about it

I'll tell you something true -

The bare necessities of life will come to you.

- Terry Gilkyson

Simple Pallet Furniture

This simple pallet couch reminds me of a Turkish hookah lounge chill space.

Linda and I both like frugal and functional when it comes to furniture, but neither of us have ever considered stuff made out of pallets. It turns out that these ubiquitous wooden shipping flats can be used to make all sorts of fun furniture on the cheap.

In "Trying To Keep It Simple", NBA community member Marion left a comment that introduced me to the world of pallet furniture.

She said, "We found that pallets could be a nice, cheap and easy way to make temporary furniture during these empty-house periods. Add a bunch of wild flowers in a glass, and home you are."

Pallet coffee table is a simple centre piece.

I had never thought of pallet furniture before so turned to an image search to see what was possible. The results got me as excited about building stuff as the last time I researched alternative furniture made out of cardboard.

I was intrigued with pallet furniture since I like the idea of upcycling this valuable, untapped resource. 500 million pallets are manufactured every year in the US alone. 30% of those are only used once, then stockpiled or discarded.

Platform bed made out of repurposed pallet wood.

While I don't have the resources currently to transform lowly pallets into lowly functional furniture, it would fun to make a few things when I get my tool bench built up to production-level standards.

A lot of pallet furniture is built for outside, but there is no reason it could not be used inside as well.

The world doesn't need another single-use pallet tossed on the pile, but it sure could use more affordable furnishings built in a sustainable way.

A funky desk can be built for next to nothing with a few tools and some creativity.

Bohemianism and Simplicity

Enjoying bohemian simplicity - making time to relax and enjoy each other, and joyful creativity.

When I say that those of you visiting this blog are different, I mean it as the ultimate compliment. You see, I am not a big fan of the normal, the average, or the conventional. And like me, I believe that a large number of NBA readers live, or would like to live, a simple lifestyle that reflects the values of Bohemianism.

Bohemianism is "the practice of an unconventional lifestyle in order to pursue creativity through musical, artistic, or literary pursuits". It can also be defined as "a person with artistic or intellectual tendencies, who lives and acts with no regard for conventional rules of behaviour."

While not necessarily involving voluntary poverty, (some of the early adherents in the 1800s were wealthy), most Bohemians, historically and today, embrace a more free, less materialistic way of life.

There is also the style of bohemianism that embraces the vagabond life - that of a gypsy, or a wanderer. This unaligned group includes all the leather tramps, rubber tramps, railway tramps, and all other folks for whom the freedom to move and be authentic is the ultimate creative passion.

Bohemian adherents love the low, discarding highbrow sensibilities as unnecessary and expensive distractions, or even as life-endangering, energy-sucking pastimes to be avoided. For alternative living folks, stripping life to the basics creates the time and space to discover the innate desire to create whatever their heart desires.

Bohemians embrace the values of simplicity and frugality and know that "civility equals hypocrisy, wealth invariably corrupts and enervates, but poverty breeds energy".

And as William Blake enthusiastically pointed out, "Energy is pure delight".

Bohemians tap into the energy of life, and maximize on the simple things that really matter. I think that probably describes most of the people that visit here, and that means I am in good company.

We are all different here, thank goodness, which helps save us from the silk restraints in the guilded cage of progress and modernity.

Unconsumption

- an idea, a set of behaviors, a way of thinking about consumption itself from a new perspective

Global consumption has exploded in recent decades, and passed the point of sustainability long ago. Enlightened individuals know that something must change. Solutions such as simple living go a long way toward restoring rationality because they deliver a higher quality of life while consuming less.


What we need, if we are going to save ourselves, is a mass deconsumption, consumption-light, or unconsumption. But how will this happen if we are addicted to high-consumption lifestyles? We need help, and soon.

Repurposing old books spines into bookmarks, from Unconsumption

The Unconsumption blog is one of the voices amid the madness of marketing and mass consumption that is trying to help people think about consuming differently. They bill themselves as a "source of inspiration for creative reuse and mindful consumption," and their site is full of links to ideas for using resources more efficiently, and creatively.


I like the concept of mindful consumption, because what it means is turning on the thinking cap before engaging in the purchase of the things we think we want and need. It can also help us enjoy the things we already have, and use them more efficiently.

It can also be a lot more fun, not to mention a whole lot less expensive.

Turn an old dresser into a bench by cutting off the legs, and adding cushions
from Unconsumption

The following is from the Unconsumption website:

Consumption is a word used to describe acts of acquisition – generally, the acquisition of things, in exchange for money. 

Unconsumption is a word used to describe everything that happens after an act of acquisition.

Unconsumption:

• is an invisible badge.
• means the accomplishment of properly recycling your old cellphone, rather than the guilt of letting it sit in a drawer. 
• means the thrill of finding a new use for something that you were about to throw away.
• means the pleasure of using a service like Freecycle (or Craigslist, Goodwill, or Salvation Army) to find a new home for the functioning DVD player you just replaced, rather than throwing it in the garbage. 
• means enjoying the things you own to the fullest – not just at the moment of acquisition. 
• means the pleasure of using a pair of sneakers until they are truly worn out – as opposed to the nagging feeling of defeat when they simply go out of style. 
• means feeling good about the simple act of turning off the lights when you leave the room. 
• is not about the rejection of things, or the demonization of things. It’s not a bunch of rules.
• is an idea, a set of behaviors, a way of thinking about consumption itself from a new perspective.
• is free.

Free clothing repair guy in San Fransisco - he has been offering this community service for more than a decade
 from Unconsumption

If you are looking for ideas and inspiration for mindful consumption (or is it mindful unconsumption?), the Unconsumption blog is a great place to go.

See more here.